That content strike again

[unixronin]

furiosity provided a more accurate translation of Anton Nosik's comments (anton_nosik, iirc, but that journal appears to have been suspended ... too much hate mail, perhaps?), and the man makes an excellent point.  I personally have thought all along that this "content strike" is misguided; the odds are it'd be a blip in the noise, if it was noticed at all.  But what Anton pointed out is that when one considers the realities of business, the content strike is not only not productive, it is COUNTER-productive.  Until the content strike is over, SUP CANNOT address the issue the strike is about, however much they may want to — because SUP CANNOT be seen as kowtowing to blackmail from its users.

Q: So why don't you just let your new users go mad if they wish to?

A: I think it's necessary to give them that ability, though since the time the change was made, there hasn't been a single actual person who said that his individual right to using a Basic account has been violated. However, I believe that it's not worth it to forbid bloggers who come to LJ after March 12th from changing their Paid and Plus accounts to Basic. I hope that we will make the appropriate correction. However, this depends not on me, but on the collective decision by the company's management.

Q: When could such a decision be taken?

A: That's where we have a problem. In these current conditions of blackmail, the company's hands are tied.

Q: Why?

A: Let's say I tell you, the journalist, politely: "I think you put an extra comma here." Your normal reaction: "Yes, you're right..." or: "Let's ask the editor..." But if I show up here and say: "Hey you, get rid of that comma, or I'mma break your face!" Would you really check the comma placement, after that?

In a situation where people are trying to blackmail and intimidate us, threatening to destroy our business, there are business reasons not to reward this sort of behaviour. This isn't just the psychology of someone who becomes more stubborn the more they're pushed. The issue is that at no point in the history of any successful business, success was not reached by bowing to aggressive, unfriendly force. No decision -- even the most correct one -- should be taken under duress.

It would probably be right to reevaluate the [ToS] passage regarding March 12th in the following few days. But from the point of view of sound corporate politics, we'll have to wait for the boycott. Let it pass. So that the topic of public outrage, threats, and intimidation can be closed. And then we can discuss the problem thoroughly.

Because "Once you have paid the Danegeld, you'll never be rid of the Dane."

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I find this argument dangerously specious.

Giving in to demands once does *not* mean you have to give in to demands at any time in the future. Especially since in this particular case they have, already, given in to the demands (such as they are).

Negotiation is not the domain of black and white. By definition, in fact. All decisions are made under duress of some kind -- otherwise they didn't really require negotiation. The watchword of diplomacy is "if everyone is unhappy with the decision -- you have reached a good compromise".

The purpose of the protest is to remind SUP that LiveJournal is a conversation (http://www.cluetrain.com/book/95-theses.html), not a dictatorship -- we are engaged in a continual negotiation, between we its content providers and customers, and it the hosting business but also the publisher. Publishers can't exist without content providers, and vice versa. Did the writer's strike prevent the studios from negotiating? No, of course not. It was just another step in the conversation.

Now -- on the flip side: punishment is rarely the way to get people to do things. Related reading. (http://www.physorg.com/news125155198.html) On the flip side, this protest doesn't actually *punish* SUP...

[skellington.livejournal.com]

You know, a "content strike" for a whole day isn't going to significantly impact their bottom line one way or the other.

If anything comes of it, I think it is more comparable to an "informational picket" that is often done during negotiations than a "strike".

It is a measure of how many people care about the elimination of the basic account, and if it is significant, then they need to take that into account going forward.

(And personally, if a friend wants to sign up for an account so I can let them read MY private blog that *I* pay to have published, I don't think they should HAVE to see ads to do so.)

Threats are setting up competing services, moving entire communities elsewhere, etc. This is just a protest march.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

In a situation where people are trying to blackmail and intimidate us, threatening to destroy our business,

I think this displays a thought process that's running rather counter to what they've claimed, and it admits a presumption that's surprising. The admission, not the presumption.


because SUP CANNOT be seen as kowtowing to blackmail from its users.

If this is their viewpoint, it's an awfully Microsoftian/80s-big-iron view (but I repeat myself redundantly) of computing and networking.


I hadn't given the "content strike" a lot of thought or attention (I wouldn't even know of it but for your links.) But if the view of SUP is "we the users" are threatening them by withholding our work - there's a major disconnect somewhere. "Nein! Type! Or Else!"

If we, the users, are the customers, this is a serious problem with the viewpoint.
If we, the users, aren't the customers, but the workers, then there's a serious problem with the viewpoint.
If SUP's entire business is _relying_ on people to work, and the lack of work threatens their business, I think they really need to rethink their business plan.

To quote from the increasingly-famous Mall Ninja thread: (http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/)
"If Plan A is to take multiple .338 shots to the back, you really need to come up with a Plan B.”

If SUP's Business plan A is to say that users shall and will provide content (mostly free/voluntary) on demand, they really need to come up with a Business Plan B.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I think the problems are far beyond a content "strike" if the owners of LJ automatically assume an adversarial relationship with their users/customers. I have no real problem with advertising, it is the censorship that really disturbed me. But the more I see about the reaction to the day off, the more I wonder just how the owners of LJ see me. Am I a customer, adding content? Am I a user, driving costs up? Am I a mark, to derive revenue from? Is my presence on the site valued?

I don't like the answers I am inferring from some of the remarks. This is a service I appreciate because it allows me to keep in touch with friends. When the cost of the service exceeds the value, I will leave. That is something that seems to be lost on the new owners.